We have this idea in our society that some things are natural, and that makes them wholesome and safe and good, and other things are “unnatural,” and that makes them dangerous and suspicious and sometimes even evil. Particularly after the natural-products boom that coincided with the environmental movement of the 1990s, “unnatural” and “artificial” became the adjectives du jour for the sorts of things that were lauded as “scientifically derived” and “industrially perfected” in earlier decades. Where items from diet pills to clothing fabric once advertised themselves as the results of years of scientific expertise at work, we now see products advertising raw cotton and açaí extracts, as though being closer to “the source” made things more effective.

At the core of this pervasive dichotomy is an intriguing dualism whose ramifications extend deep into the public discourse.

When a human turns a forest into a clearing and changes the flow of a river, the environment has been rendered “unnatural.” When a family of beavers does it, nature is hard at work.

When a fungus synthesizes a compound that blocks cell division and treats cancer, a natural wonder is unearthed. When chemists start making the same compound, it’s a Big Pharma conspiracy.

When a damselfish changes its testes for ovaries, it is population dynamics at work. When a person has surgery to change their genitalia, it’s an abomination.

When a womb discharges a fertilized egg on its own, it’s a non-event. When a person chooses for that to happen, it’s a capital crime.

“Unnatural” means when humans do it.

The entire concept of natural versus unnatural in our language hinges on the dualistic notion that humans are a distinct class of being, totally separate from mere animals and plants, our every aspect and action on a higher plane of existence. Nature is out there, and we are here. We are not part of nature; we barely even inhabit it. The things we create are “unnatural”; the things we do are “unnatural”; the places we live are “unnatural”; even the way we select our sex partners is “unnatural.” And depending on whom one asks, that makes one set of those things unequivocally bad, or the other.

In an unbroken line from us to the very beginnings of life, we are but one twig on the boundless fractal complexity of life, and the branches further removed from us show us nothing if they do not show us this. We are neither the pinnacle of creation nor some separate, promethean intruder. We are one among Darwin’s endless forms most beautiful, an expression of nature like any other, unlike any other. If there is any difference between us and the “natural” creatures of the world, it is a difference of degree, not kind. It is this distinction that gives creationists nightmares, and which makes them so desperately desirous of their particular delusion being true.

For if humans are not by their nature outside nature, that would make our activities natural. That would make our creativity natural. That would make our drive to make things, build things, understand things natural. That would make our drive to change things…natural.

That would render “natural” the fact that we are no longer required to freeze to death when the ambient temperature is -40 °C. That would render “natural” the fact that we are no longer doomed to a painful death by asphyxiation when tuberculosis sets upon us. That would render “natural” that a great deal of carbonaceous algal remnants from the Jurassic period are currently transmogrified into Tupperware containers. That would render “natural” the capacity to preserve food for weeks or more past its “natural” expiration date. That would render “natural” the fact that the time required to get from point A to point B now takes into account the energy contained in alkanes. That would render “natural” the manner in which we have so thoroughly disconnected sex from fertility, and made either possible without the other. That would render “natural” that people whose genders do not match their anatomy are no longer trapped within that discrepancy, and have recourse to treatments that can remedy it.

That would render “natural” the infinity of ways in which humankind—glorious, metacognitive humankind—has devised so that the fates and facts to which we were once condemned are distant memories.

And if it is “unnatural,” or in any way “wrong,” for us to defy the causality that makes a child the “natural” outcome of sexual intercourse, then it is equally unnatural for us to survive malaria, or have fresh tomatoes in winter, or lift things with levers and pulleys. And if it is “unnatural,” or in any way “wrong,” for someone whose basic identity is at odds with their biology to bring the latter into accordance with the former, then it is just as unnatural that people can tell us so from the opposite end of the globe in a matter of seconds, and we can hear them.

And it is equally unnatural for us to gain knowledge from anything other than firsthand experience.

That is our nature: invention, ingenuity, and change.

That is our nature, and there is only nature. There is one world, our world, and the forces that make it work. We have only spent the last several million years learning to manipulate those forces in ever more sophisticated ways.

Although it is a naturalistic fallacy to claim that GMO food is unnatural; I don’t think that grouping it together with the other examples is a good idea. One, because it’s not the same people who are making all the same assertions stated here, many of them might be pro-choice and pro-LGBTQ and who would start getting called unscientific for one thing because of the other as a result of a halo effect. Secondly, because GMO food is often produced through the transposition of genes from one species to another, and even though the peer-reviewed scientific literature at the present moment doesn’t find a flaw in it, the pleiotropic nature of many genes and the fact that many genes might remain dormant for a long period of time and be activated only when they come in contact with some agent in the environment, necessitates more research be conducted before letting them out in the environment. Now that might have already happened with some GMO but can be prevented for many others if they are harmful.

Plenty of liberal-minded people are the kind of woo-addled New Agers who lately peddle the “natural” / “unnatural” distinction, so I’m not terribly concerned with whether or not the people who may feel targeted by a piece like this are allies on other fronts.

It’s true that GMOs present a unique set of issues and challenges, which in many cases are dramatic multiplications of the same dangers that regular food-breeding already provides. Those dangers can and should be detected and mitigated as needed, but any move that encourages people to regard GMO foods as somehow lesser, or even meaningfully distinct from, regular food is wrongheaded.

http://www.facebook.com/VijayKumarSinha विजय कुमार सिंह

I clicked on the link and it gives the ‘page not found’ error. However, I went on the blog and read the comments there. I didn’t know that other people had commented along the same lines before.

If you have time, can you tell me how vertical gene transfer in the case of regular food-breeding poses the same dangers as horizontal gene transfer as in the case of GMO’s?

I think that GMO’s provided that they don’t pose a health risk would be crucial in feeding the people in the over-populated regions on the world. But, I think we should not rush head first into a field which is only still partially understood and make the kind of mistakes that were made in the past like with DDT.

Thank You, you have a great writing style.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=10613048 Alexander Gonzalez

It seems the closing parenthesis got mixed up in the URL

The only danger posed by advanced genetic engineering methods that isn’t also present in regular selective breeding is the enhanced likelihood of introducing allergens and such from the source of the new genetic material. Since we already have “this food may contain nuts” labels, though, absolutely no new laws are required. If we’re realistic about what’s involved in any specific GMO, we don’t have to regard them as an innately suspect class of technology. Genes are genes; where they come from is an afterthought at best. Likewise, terminator genes and similar bits of Monsanto industrial warfare would be just as bad if we’d somehow invented them with selective breeding instead of glass pipettes, so the GM part of the O isn’t the problem.

And we certainly don’t have to think their “unnatural-ness” is a meaningful part of that conversation, since (as I established) natural vs. unnatural is an incoherent distinction.